[Anonymous]

[BA744fan]

This is a warning to anyone who uses Upgrade Using Avios on BA.

In August 2012 I booked a flight in World Traveller Plus to HKG. The day before the flight I managed to upgrade to Club World using Avios.

When I checked my Avios statement some time later I saw that the flight was ineligible for Avios because I had upgraded. I thought nothing of it, thinking it must be because I forfeit my Avios because of the upgrade.

Tonight I read on http://www.flyertalk.com that I should have received my Avios based on the original booking. The extract from the website is as follows:

“UuA can be extremely problematic when it comes to actually getting credit for the fare you paid – many here regard BA’s back-end systems as a disgrace in this respect! UuA are an oddity, as the system needs to track two fare classes, the one you paid for, and the one you booked into. The problem is, the fare class you book into, is the same as for award tickets. So the system can incorrectly log it as an award ticket, and it comes up on the statement as earning no points or miles.

For example, a normal UuA from WT+ to Club, should appear on your statement as J/T (i.e. you sat in J but paid for T). Most of the time, it comes up as J/U instead. To correct this, you need to speak to someone at the service centre. This can take anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks to credit.”

I went back to my statement and sure enough it said J/U. If it had said J/T it would have triggered the reward of 7474 Avios.

BA’s website states claims for missing miles must be made within 6 months, but as the claim is due to BA’s error I have emailed them to see if they would be good enough to rectify it.

As I write this I have not had an official reply so do not know if my request will be successful.

However the main reason for telling this story is to raise awareness of the fact that BA make mistakes.

This raises the question “How many Avios does BA get away with not crediting because Exec Club members either do not check their statements or are not aware of this glitch in the UUA process”.

[pdtraveller]

Yep, long standing issue but would be surprised if BA hold to the 6month rule. That is aimed at preventing retrospective claims not correcting known BA errors.

[IanFromHKG]

BA are notorious for this. We have the same problem every single time we upgrade (although in our case we are using Asia Miles rather than Avios). Even in normal cases they take ages to credit the miles. We routinely keep all boarding passes until miles are credited, regardless of airline

[BA744fan]

I hope BA will honour the Avios points as it was their error so it will be interesting to see how accommodating and flexible their Customer Services Dept are!

[StandingThemUp]

BA744fan – 02/08/2013 06:28 GMT

I would call the BAEC, if I were you. They should be able to sort it out immediately and they have plenty of experience to fall back on 🙂

[Gold-2K]

Has happened to me a few times but its no big deal. Each time I have just called the EC and correction has normally appeared on the statement in a few days.

[BA744fan]

Nothing would give me more pleasure than to actually get through to the BAEC but I can’t seem to get beyond the “We are experiencing an extremely high volume of calls. Please visit BA online or call back later”, at which point the line goes dead!

[BA744fan]

Good old BA. I knew they wouldn’t let me down. Missing Avios will be credited as it was their fault, even though they relate to a flight from almost a year ago. Unfortunately Tier Points won’t be as they have expired. Oh well, can’t have everything in life.

[FirstTraveller]

I had the same problem last week. I upgraded one sector of my trip from CW to F using avios. To my surprise all the sectors flown later were also not credited and mentioned that they were ineligible!!!

This problem was not happening in the past. I wonder why it is back again!!!

[JeffD]

I had the same issue buying an upgrade at the airport. I simply called Exec club and was credited the correct number of Avios related to my original paid ticket.

[Chardie]

This is very strange, Wife and kids flew LHR-BKK WTP last week and none of them have been credited with any points or miles. No problem with the outward leg BKK-LHR though. My guess is there is some sort of glitch in the system somewhere.

[NameRemoved-18/12/14]

The BAEC also gets it wrong in the passenger’s favour. I recently received a whopper of an avios credit for no apparent reason. I almost passed out.

I suppose I should use them before the mistake is realised!

[TiredOldHack]

I missed out on TPs on a flight with LAN, pespite quoting booking reference and sending them the itinerary. They wanted the boarding pass stub. Needless to day I didn’t have it. Won’t make that mistake again.

[davidas]

I just used the BA app which says buy with cash and upgrade with Avios. When I look at my booking it shows no tier points or Avois, upon checking with BA they show in their system that I bought the ticket with Avios and money which is incorrect. After going to 4 help desks the best they could do was offer a refund which was like blackmail as the fares have now all increased. Be careful if you pay cash and upgrade with miles, you should get points for the cash fare but this is not always the case with BA

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